LONDON: A London jury on Monday unanimously found militant Islamic State group follower Ali Harbi Ali guilty of murdering UK lawmaker David Amess in a ferocious knife attack in October last year.

“It cannot have been easy to listen to the evidence you have listened to,” judge Nigel Sweeney told jurors, saying he would sentence Ali, 26, on Wednesday.

Ali had told the trial that he had no regrets about murdering father-of-five Amess after he voted in parliament for air strikes in Syria in 2014. The court at London’s Old Bailey heard that Ali stabbed Amess more than 20 times with a foot-long carving knife in Leigh-on-Sea, southeast England.

Members of Amess’s family were in court as the verdict was read out, during which Ali refused to stand on religious grounds.

Ali, from north London, arranged an appointment with Amess, 69, by telling the politician’s office that he was a healthcare worker and wished to talk about local issues. Knife-wielding Ali was apprehended at the scene of the murder in a church by two police officers armed only with batons and spray. He had sent a manifesto to family and friends to try to justify his actions around the time of the attack.

The court heard that Ali said “sorry” to Amess before killing him, after which his assistant Julie Cushion said he appeared “self-satisfied”.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2022